The famous Palmas de cera - Valle de Cocora

Valle de Cocora, Quindio, Colombia. Jun 12, 2014

comments (4)

Thibaud Aronson

Lion

Reaching 60 meters in height, this is the tallest palm, and indeed the tallest Monocot in the world. Nearly endemic to Colombia, it is severely threatened because it was extensively harvested for Palm Sunday celebrations. But is now the official tree of Colombia, and protection is starting to be enforced more seriously, along with outreach campaigns. Its most serious threat nowadays, as always, is habitat loss. Posted 9 years ago
1. Ferdy Christant
  
  Lion
  
  Thank you for including those very educational facts. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on conservation in Colombia? Posted 9 years ago
2. 1. Thibaud Aronson
    
    Lion
    
    They're actually quite good, both with conservation and restoration of ecosystems. 59 parks, 11% of the land surface. Considering the 40 years of conflict with the FARC (fingers crossed for the referendum on October 2nd!), they really have done quite well, and hopefully it will continue to improve. One good really thing is the effort that is made to get kids to appreciate and be proud of their country's extraordinary biodiversity, with lots of very good booklets distributed for free in schools. And their universities produce really solid biologists (I know, I studied with some of them). There are problems of course, with illegal logging and such, but not nearly as bad as in some other countries. Posted 9 years ago
  2. 1. Ferdy Christant
      
      Lion
      
      That is encouraging. If anybody is crossing fingers for October going well, it will be us, as then we will visit. I hear it's a very complicated matter though.
      
      In several forums online I keep hearing from the few tourists who visited that it is the most beautiful country in the world, which makes me so excited. If it lives up to this expectation, I can see it as a destination to visit several times. For us that is exceptional, so far only Madagascar has earned that title for us.
      
      Ending with this quote which is being popularized:
      
      "God made our land so beautiful it was unfair to the rest of the world. So to even the score, God populated the land with a race of evil men." Posted 9 years ago